With Karim Khan’s dismissal, the elimination of the war crimes court is near-complete
By Jonathan Cook | July 30, 2026
The most important question we should be asking after Karim Khan’s dismissal last week as chief prosecutor of the ICC – the international war crimes court in The Hague – is not whether he is guilty of “sexual misconduct” against another staff member, identified as “Sarah”.
That can only be decided through a legal process – one, let us note, that has already taken place. A fact-finding body carried out a lengthy investigation of Sarah’s allegations over more than a year; its thousands of pages of evidence were then evaluated in detail by three senior judges.
Though you would not know it from the media coverage, they concluded that there was no evidence to suggest any kind of misconduct by Khan, sexual or otherwise.
Strangely, that determination was largely confirmed by an extraordinarily deferential “exclusive” CNN interview with Sarah, aired earlier this month.
She declined to give any meaningful details of what Khan had allegedly subjected her to, and celebrity interviewer Christiane Amanpour delicately avoided pressing her for any clarification.
No matter. The purpose of the CNN interview was never about excavating facts. It was designed to offer face-saving cover as an entirely political body called the Assembly of States Parties, comprising diplomatic representatives of the 125 states signed up to the ICC, entirely ignored the legal findings and dismissed Khan.
Paradoxically, it was the Assembly of States Parties that appointed the judges who had concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty by Khan. That inconvenient judgment was simply reversed, despite the Assembly members being in no position to weigh the evidence themselves.
We should not forget that many of these states have an investment in weakening the only international court that can bring their own senior officials to trial for war crimes.
In May 2024 – shortly before Sarah made her allegations – the ICC demonstrated that it was finally ready to prosecute western leaders for war crimes, not just those from the Global South or from the West’s official enemies, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Khan issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Both are accused of crimes against humanity for starving the people of Gaza through a prolonged blockade of food, water and power.
Were Netanyahu ever to face trial – and found guilty, as he almost certainly would be – a lot of other leaders would have good reason to fear they might be found culpable next, not least for their complicity in Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
The question that needs answering now is not whether Khan is guilty of misconduct – that has been decided at a political level, not a legal one. No, we need an answer to an equally political, and far more troubling, question.
“Cui bono?” Or “Who benefits?”
The evidence is hiding in plain sight. The evidence is revealed both in the deeply politicised process that led to Khan’s downfall, and in what that process means for the future of the court.
Covert war
Khan is not the first ICC chief prosecutor to face extreme pressures – and, as with Khan, those pressures surfaced at the very moment Khan’s predecessor tried to take on Israel over its war crimes.
Fatou Bensouda faced a “covert war” waged against her by Israel for the best part of a decade, according to an investigation by the Guardian in May 2024, just as Khan issued his arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
The Guardian’s report, published nearly three years after Bensouda had completed her nine-year term at the ICC, revealed that, during that time, she had faced threats to herself and her family, the monitoring of her communications, and an intimidating visit to her home.
More recently, Bensouda has confirmed these accounts in an interview with Al Jazeera. Bensouda notes that she repeatedly reported Israel’s campaign of intimidation to the Dutch authorities, but they did nothing to investigate the threats or protect her.
She also says certain “authorities” – she does not name them – warned her that she was going too far in investigating Israeli crimes and that “you could be harmed or you could be killed, or family members could be harmed in some way.”
The campaign of threats – instigated by Yossi Cohen, then the director of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad – intensified as Bensouda considered whether to open a formal investigation into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, we should remember, predate – by decades – Hamas’ attack on 7 October 2023. In fact, though no one is supposed to mention it, Israel’s sustained crimes of occupation are the self-evident cause of that Hamas attack.
An Israeli source told the Guardian that “the Mossad’s objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands”– that is, scrap the ICC’s investigation into Israeli crimes. Another source admitted that Cohen was acting on Netanyahu’s instructions.
During one contact, Cohen reportedly issued a Mafia-style threat to Bensouda: “You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
The Guardian reported that the Mossad “took a keen interest in Bensouda’s family members and obtained transcripts of secret recordings of her husband, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Israeli officials then attempted to use the material to discredit the prosecutor”.
The paper also noted that there were fears among senior ICC officials that “Israel had cultivated sources within the court’s prosecution division” – the division Khan would inherit from Bensouda.
Cohen was described as “stalking” Bensouda, and personally “ambushed” her in a hotel room in New York in 2018. Afterwards he repeatedly phoned her, in a threatening manner that was said to have escalated over time. When Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, he reportedly replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”
According to the Guardian :
On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown Bensouda copies of photographs of her husband, which were taken covertly when the couple were visiting London. On another, according to sources, Cohen suggested to the prosecutor that a decision to open a full investigation would be detrimental to her career.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Mossad had been actively seeking compromising information on the prosecutor and took an interest in her family members.
The spy agency obtained a cache of material, including transcripts of an apparent sting operation against her husband.
Israel used the materials to mount a “smear campaign” against her, but one that ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Concerted backlash
When Khan took up the role of ICC chief prosecutor in June 2021, he proved reluctant to pick up where Bensouda had left off on the Palestine case. Presumably, he was only too aware of the retaliation from Israel against her.
Bensouda had announced in December 2019 that she had grounds to open a full criminal investigation into allegations of war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
However, in the face of a concerted backlash from western states, she delayed opening the investigation. She first sought a ruling from a pre-trial chamber of ICC judges – presumably in the hope it would serve as some kind of insurance policy – on whether the court had jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian territories.
By February 2021 the judges confirmed what was already self-evident. The court did have such jurisdiction because Palestine had been signed up to the court since 2015.
Bensouda stepped down a few months later.
The door was now open for Khan to prosecute Israeli officials for war crimes. However, the new chief prosecutor gave every appearance – perhaps understandably – of preferring to sit on his hands.
It was not just Israel that had been fearsomely opposed to its officials being tried for war crimes. Washington was equally incensed at the prospect – sometimes, it seemed, more so than over the possibility that US officials might also face arrest warrants for crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Between 2019 and 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the US imposed severe visa restrictions and financial sanctions on Bensouda. Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, linked the sanctions to the Palestine case: “It’s clear the ICC is only putting Israel in [its] crosshairs for nakedly political purposes.”
Khan might well have avoided pursuing Israel indefinitely had it not been for the events that followed 7 October 2023.
Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, its devastation of the enclave’s homes and infrastructure, and its starvation of the entire population were actions so criminally abhorrent that UN agencies, major human rights groups and Holocaust scholars were soon all in agreement that they amounted to genocide.
In May 2024, Khan announced arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders subsequently killed by Israel.
Tsunami of threats
Shortly before Khan made that announcement, 12 senior US Senators had sent a threatening letter to the ICC: “Target Israel and we will target you.” The letter ended: “You have been warned.”
Describing Israeli and US sovereignty as inseparable, the senators reminded Khan that Washington had demonstrated “the lengths to which we will go to protect [our] sovereignty.”
A 2002 law, popularly known as “The Hague Invasion Act”, authorises the US president “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to bring about the release US persons and any allies imprisoned or detained by the ICC. Those allies, it goes without saying, include Israeli leaders.
Such threats, it should be noted, are a violation of Article 70 of the Rome Statute.
Following the issuing of the arrest warrants, there followed a tsunami of similar threats – and presumably more that have yet to become public – against Khan and the ICC.
A British-Israeli lawyer within the ICC – one known to have ties to Netanyahu’s legal adviser – warned Khan “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court” if the warrants were not rescinded. He urged Khan to “climb down the tree” and drop the case.
The UK’s foreign secretary of the time, David Cameron, phoned Khan to tell him Britain would defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute that founded the ICC if Khan did not back down.
Cameron warned Khan that he was “on the brink of making a huge mistake” and urged him to “take a step back and consider things”. He added that applying for arrest warrants for Israeli officials was tantamount to “dropping a hydrogen bomb”.
Meanwhile, Trump issued an executive order imposing aggressive financial sanctions against Khan and other ICC officials, including several of its judges.
Khan himself received warnings that Israel’s Mossad was continuing its operations in The Hague, where the ICC is located, to monitor and compromise the court’s investigators as they compiled evidence on Israel – just as it had done earlier under Bensouda.
Khan publicly stated that retaliatory threats and intimidation were explicitly targeting members of his own family.
Untouchable criminals
What conclusions should we draw from all of this?
Quite aside from the matter of whether Sarah’s allegations of “sexual misconduct” are true or not, it is clear that Israel and the US have been digging for dirt – and apparently ready to fabricate such dirt – on any chief prosecutor who tries to hold them to account for their crimes.
Both have indicated that they are ready to manipulate legal and political processes to ensure the outcome they desire: that they remain untouchable.
We have a template for how this plays out. Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, published details in 2010 of US and British war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost immediately he found himself entangled in accusations of sexual misdemeanours – in his case in Sweden – that were similarly amplified by an uncritical western media.
Assange faced years in various forms of confinement while the US and UK pressured Sweden to keep alive an investigation against him Swedish prosecutors at least twice sought to drop for lack of credible evidence.
In fact, the US and UK never wanted the evidence tested – they were quite happy with a permanent, unresolved “investigation” – precisely because they knew it would have been unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny.
The point was simply to generate constant headlines about “rape”, turning Assange into a pariah, justifying his effective disappearance from public life, severely weakening Wikileaks as a whistleblowing platform, deflecting attention from the all-too-real crimes committed by the US and Britain, and paving the way to a political show trial to extradite him to the US on entirely confected “espionage” charges.
This has been repeated in the case of Khan and the ICC. In Khan’s case, the evidence was tested and found inadequate. So the legal process has been replaced by a flagrantly political one.
Khan has been turned into a legal pariah, even stripped of his right to work as a lawyer in the UK by the British Bar Association.
The ICC has been further weakened, just as Israel and the US have expressly stated they wanted it to be. Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, has recently launched an official campaign to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick”.
He says: “Now they [the ICC] are going to see the consequences”. Consequences of what? Of seeking to enforce international law against a key US client state.
Meanwhile, accountability for the all-too-real crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank – and actively supported by western states like the US, Germany and Britain – recedes yet further into the background
As each brick protecting the ICC is dismantled, a brick is added to the wall of protection around Netanyahu and Israel’s genocidal war machine.
Israel, meanwhile, is barely concealing that it has been masterminding the effort to destroy the ICC.
According to Guy Azriel, the diplomatic correspondent for i24 News, Israeli foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar “oversaw a dedicated task force and employed intensive diplomatic efforts aimed at securing Khan’s removal from office”.
Hillel Neuer, director of the Israel apologist group United Nations Watch, cheered what he called “our campaign to remove” Khan, and warned Francesca Albanese, the UN’s legal expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, “you’re next”.
Like Khan, Albanese has been searching for practical, legal ways – not just rhetoric – to hold Israel and its western allies to account for the crimes in Gaza.
Predatory states
The ICC claims its work will not be affected by Khan’s removal and that the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant will still be pursued under new stewardship. That seems doubtful.
Israel and the US are cranking up the intimidation of the ICC, which has no tools – beyond the support of members states – to enforce its rulings or protect itself from the hostility of a rogue superpower.
Currently the court appears paralysed, allowing Israel to muddy the waters with interminable, and vexatious, appeals against the arrest warrants.
Any lawyer who takes up the post of ICC chief prosecutor will be only too aware of the fate that befell Khan and the campaign of intimidation against Bensouda as soon as each tried to enforce accountability on Israel and its western patrons.
It will take a very brave individual indeed to renew that task. Khan’s successor will understand that, in any further confrontation with Israel and Washington, the US will not hesitate to crush the ICC and, with it, remove the only effective restraint on criminality by powerful states.
More likely, however, the Assembly of States Parties – the political body that ousted Khan – will privately require from his successor reassurances that the new chief prosecutor reliably defer to the principle of Israeli and western impunity. Only someone less willing to ruffle feathers stands any chance of being appointed.
That was the clearest of messages sent by the Assembly when a majority of member states voted to be rid of Khan. The short-lived experiment in creating a mechanism for enforcing international law is over. We are back to the law of the jungle.
Hundred of thousands of people around the world – more likely millions – will now find themselves even more exposed to the criminal actions of predatory states. Unlike Khan’s accuser, they are unlikely to ever get their day in court.
UK charges over 1,500 people over signs opposing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
The Cradle | July 31, 2026
British authorities listed the cases of 1,579 people at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 30 July, holding cardboard signs opposing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, according to the campaign group Defend Our Juries.
The group said the hearing had been pushed back to October, but that hundreds of defendants were never told, leaving them unsure whether they were required to appear, pointing to the confusion as evidence of a crisis the courts cannot absorb.
One court notice seen by Middle East Eye told the recipient they must attend on 30 July, then instructed them in the same letter not to come to court.
Defendants who arrived were handed a further letter addressed to whomever it may concern, adjourning all cases to 26 October.
The chaos came on the same day the Supreme Court ruled that Palestine Action can challenge its proscription.
Over 3,500 arrests have been made under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 of people holding cardboard signs reading, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” Defend Our Juries said.
Those cases are tried summarily and carry a maximum of six months in prison, and include senior citizens, faith leaders, and first-time protesters.
In the past two months, 96 people have filmed videos inviting support for Palestine Action, with many also declaring membership.
The declaration of membership exposes them to Sections 11 and 12 of the same act, which are heard before juries and carry sentences of up to 14 years.
Eight of those who filmed have been arrested, seven in dawn raids on people’s homes, with another 14 detained outside New Scotland Yard on 5 July.
Home Office figures cited by the group show 92 percent of terrorism arrests in the year to March 2026 were linked to alleged support for Palestine Action, with the average demographic profile of the suspect being a 59-year-old white British woman.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham had inherited the crisis, asking “does he really want to be seen locking up pensioners, priests and 84-year-old Reverend Sue Parfitt while people convicted of violent offenses are released early?”
On 15 June 2026, the Court of Appeal ruled the government’s classification of Palestine Action as a terrorist entity was lawful, overturning the February 2026 High Court judgment that had called it unlawful and disproportionate.
Israeli army detonates 700 tons of explosives near Lebanon’s historic Beaufort Castle
The Cradle | July 31, 2026
Israel carried out massive detonations involving around 700 tons of explosives around Lebanon’s historic Beaufort Castle – a UNESCO World Heritage site – with the huge blasts being heard across large parts of the country’s south late on 30 July.
The violent detonations were carried out under the pretext of alleged Hezbollah infrastructure under the Crusader-era fortress. This has been denied by Lebanese authorities.
“Israeli forces carried out unprecedented bombardment in southern Lebanon, triggering a series of powerful explosions that residents said were unlike anything heard in recent years,” Al Manar TV reported on Friday.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) also reported the blasts, calling them “massive” and “unprecedented,” while confirming that they were heard across the whole south.
“The blasts echoed across all of south Lebanon with unprecedented intensity, and their shockwaves reached the Iqlim al-Kharroub and Khaldeh regions,” the report said, adding that “violent explosions in the Beaufort Castle area shattered the glass of several windows in homes in the town of Qlayaa.”
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri condemned the violent detonations.
“The shockwaves from these terrorist explosions, caused by 700 tons of explosives, registered 3.8 on seismic monitoring scales and were felt by Lebanese citizens from the South and Mount Lebanon all the way to the outskirts of Beirut,” he said.
Lebanon’s Culture Ministry released a statement saying Beaufort Castle was unharmed.
However, it stressed that because the area remains under Israeli occupation, specialized technical teams have been prevented from accessing the site in order to conduct a proper assessment of any potential damage.
Earlier in July, the castle had been placed on UNESCO’s list of sites “in danger.”
The massive detonations were announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s War Ministry late on Thursday evening.
In a joint statement, Netanyahu and War Minister Israel Katz claimed a Hezbollah tunnel network under the castle was destroyed.
They also confirmed the unprecedented amounts of explosives used in their “operation.”
Israeli occupation forces will “remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon and will continue to destroy all terror infrastructure to prevent any attempt by Hezbollah to restore its capabilities,” they added.
Lebanon’s Directorate General of Antiquities has previously rejected Israeli claims that the site contained Hezbollah infrastructure.
Israeli maps and videos detailing “terrorist infrastructure” are fabricated, and the fortress has been under Lebanese state administration since 2000, placing under enhanced protection in line with the 1954 Hague Convention.
Lebanese geologists have warned that demolitions of this scale near major fault lines could potentially trigger human-induced seismic activity.
Israeli forces occupied the castle in May 2026 and framed the move as a major strategic victory. Hebrew media challenged this narrative at the time.
Israeli forces were unable to maintain a consistent presence in the historic site due to constant resistance operations – namely Hezbollah’s FPV drone strikes that have inflicted heavy casualties and losses on the Israeli occupation forces since March.
Since the violent detonations near the castle on Thursday night, Israel has continued destroying civilian infrastructure across south Lebanon.
Heavy explosions were recorded in Deir Siryan on Friday, while Israeli shelling continued to target the Ali al-Taher Hill.
Over 4,300 have been killed and more than a million displaced by Israel in Lebanon since 2 March.
Tens of thousands of civilian homes and buildings – amounting to practically all of south Lebanon’s border villages – have been eradicated.
Israeli occupation forces refuse to withdraw, and the Lebanese government has signed a US-brokered deal allowing Tel Aviv to maintain its illegal presence in the country.
Israeli army suicides rise again as two female soldiers die, bringing this year’s total to 16
MEMO | July 29, 2026
Two Israeli female soldiers died by suicide this week, bringing the number of serving Israeli soldiers who have taken their own lives since the start of the year to 16, amid growing concern over rising suicide rates in the military since the war in the Gaza Strip began.
Haaretz reported on Tuesday that a female soldier from the Bardelas Battalion, deployed along the Egypt-Israel border, died by suicide on Tuesday morning at a military base in southern Israel.
The newspaper said she was found injured at the base and taken to hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
In a separate incident, Haaretz reported that a female soldier serving in Israeli military intelligence died by suicide on Sunday at the Glilot military base near Ramat Hasharon in central Israel. The report said she held a classified position.
According to Haaretz, the Israeli military has opened investigations through the Military Police into the circumstances surrounding both incidents.
Data compiled by the newspaper showed that the number of serving Israeli soldiers who have died by suicide since the beginning of this year has risen to 16.
The report added that at least nine other soldiers, including regular and reserve personnel who had taken part in the war, also took their own lives while off duty.
According to an earlier Haaretz report, 22 serving Israeli soldiers died by suicide in 2025, marking the highest annual figure recorded by the Israeli military in the past 15 years.
Iran demands ‘restitution’ for Kiev’s deadly attack
RT | July 29, 2026
Iran has demanded compensation from Ukraine over a deadly strike on a cargo ship after Kiev’s foreign minister initially claimed that “Iran has no standing to pretend to be a victim,” only to call Tehran a day later and assure it that the attack was unintentional and that Kiev did not seek escalation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that he had spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sibiga, following the attack on the cargo ship Anna in the Caspian Sea last week.
“Was assured by Ukrainian FM that the attack on an Iranian ship was unintentional and Ukraine seeks no escalation,” Araghchi wrote on X. “Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable. There must be restitution for losses.”
Sibiga described the call as a “frank conversation” and said Kiev wanted to “avoid unnecessary escalation.” He maintained that Ukrainian operations were aimed at countering Russia and were “never intended to target civilian vessels or people,” while calling on Tehran to end its alleged support for Moscow.
The conciliatory language marked a sharp shift from Sibiga’s public response a day earlier, when he denounced Iran’s complaints as “unjustified and groundless” and referred to the Iranian government as “the regime in Teheran.”
“Iran has no standing to pretend to be a victim,” Sibiga wrote on Monday, accusing Tehran of supplying Russia with weapons and dismissing its references to the UN Charter as “absurd.” He also claimed that Iran was attempting to divert attention from Russian strikes on Ukrainian shipping in the Black Sea.
In recent weeks, the Russian military has escalated long-range strikes on port infrastructure and shipping targets in the Black Sea, seeking to disrupt the flow of military supplies and weapons to Ukraine. Multiple freighters, combat and auxiliary vessels, and various port installations have been struck, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.
Ukrainian forces struck the Anna early on Saturday, triggering an explosion that killed one Iranian sailor and injured another.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack as “reckless,” summoned Ukraine’s acting chargé d’affaires and warned that it reserved the right to protect the country’s security and national interests.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky subsequently praised the “very strong results” of strikes on vessels he claimed were involved in transporting military cargo. Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel similarly claimed that the Anna had been carrying components for drones and missiles, while Tehran maintained that the vessel and its cargo were entirely civilian.
Before Tuesday’s call, Araghchi had accused Zelensky of attacking the commercial vessel “at Israel’s behest” and attempting to draw Europe deeper into the conflict. He warned that the killing of the Iranian sailor “cannot go unanswered.”
The incident involving the Iranian vessel comes amid growing accusations that Kiev is expanding its activities in the Middle East. Iraq’s national security adviser claimed this week that authorities had arrested several groups that confessed to carrying out attacks on behalf of Ukraine. Kiev rejected the allegations as “unfounded and unsubstantiated.”
German arms exports to Israel surge sharply amid Gaza genocide
A submarine docked in a shipyard of warship maker TKMS in Kiel, Germany, on April 22, 2026. (Photo by Reuters)
Press TV – July 27, 2026
The German government has confirmed that it dramatically escalated its military material support for the occupying Israeli regime, approving a surge in arms export licenses that includes the delivery of a highly classified, nuclear-capable submarine.
Germany approved nearly $913 million in arms export licenses to Israel during the first five months of 2026, exceeding the total value approved over the previous 20 months combined, according to a government response to a parliamentary inquiry.
The figures were disclosed in a written reply by the Federal Foreign Office to a question from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The response stated that almost all of the approvals were granted in April and May.
This increase marks a sharp rise in German arms export approvals to Israel, despite repeated statements by Berlin expressing concern over the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s military genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip.
More than 60% of the total value of the approved export licenses is allocated to a single, unnamed “major maritime project,” according to the government.
Defense analysts said the project is likely to involve a submarine built by German shipbuilder TKMS. The most probable candidate is the INS Drakon, a Dolphin II-class submarine capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
The submarine completed sea trials last year at TKMS’s shipyard in Kiel on Germany’s Baltic coast. German media reported that it was formally delivered to the Israeli Navy last week. The vessel has an estimated value of about $548 million.
According to defense reports, the INS Drakon may be equipped with a vertical launch system (VLS), allowing it to fire cruise or ballistic missiles. If confirmed, Israel would become only the second entity after South Korea known to operate a conventionally powered, air-independent propulsion submarine fitted with a VLS.
During sea trials, the submarine’s sail was covered with tarpaulins and fiberglass panels, preventing outside observers from identifying its weapons configuration.
Military analysts say submarines of this class could provide the occupying Israeli regime with a sea-based second-strike nuclear capability.
In May, TKMS signed a memorandum of understanding with Israeli company Elbit Systems on future cooperation.
Johannes Mutschler, a defense analyst, said some officials within the German government viewed exports of certain weapons to Israel as problematic in light of “numerous and credible reports” pointing to Israeli war crimes during the genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip. However, he noted that those concerns had not resulted in a broader policy restricting arms exports to Israel.
Germany remains one of the world’s largest arms exporters to the occupied Israeli entity. According to the Ministry for Economic Affairs’ Arms Export Report published in mid-July, Berlin approved export licenses worth $15.8 billion during the first half of 2026, more than four times the amount approved during the same period a year earlier. Ukraine remained the largest recipient of German arms exports.
Germany’s defense industry has expanded rapidly in recent years as the government has increased military spending following the Russia-Ukraine war.
Germany’s lethal arms exports to the occupied territories have seen a tenfold increase after Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, making Berlin not only complicit but an active participant in the genocide unfolding in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Under the shadow of the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has accelerated its annexation drive in the West Bank. The occupied West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.
How Kuwait and Bahrain miscalculated by becoming launchpads for US strikes on Iran
By Mohammad Molaei | Press TV | July 27, 2026
On the afternoon of February 28, as the first dark clouds of joint Israeli-American military aggression gathered over Iran, a sports hall in the small southern city of Lamerd – a place that had once echoed with the squeak of sneakers and the thrill of competition – was transformed into a scene of unspeakable carnage.
Two American Increment One Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs), fitted with fragmentation warheads, tore through the facility while a women’s volleyball team was actively training inside. The gruesome and deliberate attack claimed many civilian lives, including dozens of children, and left scores more wounded and maimed.
In a grim parallel to the earlier attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, the US war machine initially refused to acknowledge its culpability in both incidents, due to massive global outcry, particularly in Minab.
Instead, American officials went so far as to formally and cynically attribute the tragedy IN BOTH to an alleged malfunction of an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile, a brazen attempt to absolve themselves of yet another unforgivable war crime.
The official American position attributed the civilian deaths in Lamerd to an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile – a KH-55 derivative that bears no resemblance whatsoever to an American PrSM, differing fundamentally in shape, flight trajectory, and terminal dive profile.
This assertion proved deeply peculiar, particularly after Iranian media published CCTV footage showing impact patterns unmistakably consistent with PrSM fragmentation warheads, alongside visuals clearly depicting a ballistic projectile descending in a manner entirely characteristic of the American weapon system.
Identifying the probable staging ground for this attack and others like it proved to be a matter of straightforward deduction. The United States employs the tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to deploy two distinct families of short-range tactical ballistic missiles: the newer PrSM and the older MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), with maximum ranges of 500 and 300 kilometers, respectively.
Given these systems’ limited reach and the considerable operational threat posed by Iran-allied resistance groups throughout Iraq, it became increasingly evident that the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf had consented to allow American forces to utilize their territory as launch pads for aggression against Iran and its civilian population.
Liability for the strikes
In the weeks following the initial wave of US-Israeli military aggression against Iran, a substantial body of open-source evidence accumulated, enabling one to reconstruct the operational architecture behind the attacks with reasonable confidence.
Satellite imagery reviewed by independent researchers, munitions debris documented by Iranian media and corroborated by third-party analysts, and flight-path data derived from publicly accessible tracking sources collectively point to forward launch positions in Kuwait and Bahrain as the points of origin for a series of ballistic missile strikes against Iranian territory.
The ATACMS and the longer-range PrSM are neither cruise missiles nor air-launched munitions. They are ground-launched ballistic systems that demand substantial fixed or semi-fixed infrastructure, pre-positioned logistics, and complete host-nation cooperation – or at minimum, tacit acquiescence.
In practical terms, this arrangement extends far beyond granting overflight rights to American aircraft. The deployment of American artillery regiments fielding short-range ballistic missiles on Kuwaiti and Bahraini soil is not incidental but structural. Such weaponry would have served no purpose other than to strike at Iranian territory.
Diplomatically, Tehran delivered an explicit and time-bound demand to both Manama and Kuwait City: cease facilitating the war of aggression, expel the American military forces and their assets, or face the consequences.
The initial response from Bahrain and Kuwait was, in a word, silence – punctuated by formulaic statements affirming their alliance commitments while declining to confirm or deny the operational details that open-source evidence had already established.
It was not a neutral posture but represented a conscious and controversial choice to take sides in an active war, which carries inevitable consequences.
Lamerd sports hall attack
The denial and what came after
Both Kuwait and Bahrain moved quickly to deny the reports. Official statements from Kuwait City and Manama dismissed the open-source evidence as fabricated or misattributed, with Kuwaiti officials characterizing the satellite imagery and debris documentation as part of an Iranian information operation.
Bahraini authorities declined to comment on specific operational details, citing security considerations. The denials were categorical yet they did not survive the end of active hostilities.
In the weeks following the cessation of the initial combat phase, a more complete evidentiary picture emerged, placing Kuwait at the epicenter of the ballistic missile campaign against Iran.
CENTCOM released declassified strike footage confirming ground-launched ballistic operations, footage that independent analysts cross-referenced with geographic markers consistent with Kuwaiti territory.
The release, framed by US officials as a demonstration of operational effectiveness, had the unintended secondary effect of directly contradicting the categorical denials issued by Kuwait. More damaging still was the subsequent discovery of expended ATACMS canisters in the Kuwaiti desert, physical evidence that no official statement could plausibly explain away. The canisters confirmed not only the presence of the launch systems but also the scale and intensity of their operational use.
Kuwait’s role as the operational hub
With the resumption of active combat operations in recent weeks, following American attempts to establish an illegal maritime corridor in the Omani section of the Strait of Hormuz in brazen violation of the memorandum of understanding signed between the two sides, Kuwait’s role has intensified considerably.
The frequency of ballistic missile launches from Kuwaiti territory has increased markedly, a pattern fully consistent with Western reporting indicating that US PrSM stocks have been effectively depleted.
With PrSM availability now severely constrained, the operational burden of American ballistic missile attacks has shifted entirely back to the older ATACMS platform, and Kuwait has emerged as the primary launch hub for that capability.
The geographic logic is self-evident. Kuwait’s proximity to western Iran, and particularly to the southern province of Khuzestan, renders it the most efficient forward position for strikes targeting the military, economic, and energy infrastructure concentrated in that region.
Khuzestan is home to a substantial share of Iran’s oil production, refining capacity, and petrochemical industry, and has consequently emerged as a principal focal point of American military aggression. The volume of launches emanating from Kuwait reflects that strategic prioritization with unmistakable clarity.
The Incriminating Lights
The Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf have made every possible effort to suppress citizen documentation of military activity, imposing social media restrictions and punitive measures to limit the spread of footage that might complicate official denials.
Yet those efforts have proven increasingly ineffective. As the war has persisted, a steady and growing stream of video and photographic evidence has emerged from Kuwait, captured by residents documenting ballistic missile launches occurring with near-nightly regularity.
The imagery, showing missile contrails ascending over Kuwait and tracking northeast across or alongside Iraqi airspace before continuing toward Iranian territory, circulates widely across platforms such as Telegram.
Multiple photographs and video footage taken from different vantage points confirm the flight paths, the frequency, and the unmistakable signature of ground-launched ballistic systems operating from Kuwaiti soil with undeniable clarity.
The nightly launches have become, in a grim sense, a matter of public record, documented by ordinary Kuwaiti and Iraqi residents whose smartphones have captured what governments continue to officially deny.
The chasm between the official position and the visible reality has widened to a point where it functions less as a credible denial and more as a formal fiction, maintained by all parties for reasons of diplomatic convenience.
The Iranian counter-strike record
Iran has not absorbed this campaign passively. In the weeks following the intensification of launches from Kuwaiti territory, Iranian forces have conducted retaliatory strikes targeting the American military’s forward launch infrastructure.
A growing evidentiary record of these strikes, assembled from open-source footage, presents an intriguing visual signature involving what appear to be large secondary explosions following initial impact, characterized by the bright, fast-burning combustion profile associated with solid-propellant missile fuel.
The secondary detonations visible in circulating clips are inconsistent with conventional munitions storage and consistent with the ignition of solid rocket propellant – of the type utilized in ATACMS – either from fueled launcher vehicles or from stockpiled rounds awaiting deployment.
Several clips show fires burning after initial impact, with the characteristic white-orange flame column that propellant combustion produces distinguishing these events unmistakably from the black smoke of fuel or ordnance fires.
Survival and the limits of alignment
Small states make difficult choices under duress, caught precariously between a powerful patron’s operational requirements and a large neighbor’s legitimate security concerns.
Experts acknowledge that the constraints on Bahraini and Kuwaiti sovereignty, stemming from their profound dependence on the United States, are genuine and substantial.
But, they insist that acknowledgment of constraint is not the same as absolution from responsibility. Governments bear an obligation to their populations that supersedes alliance loyalties, an obligation to assess, without illusion, the risks that their choices are generating.
The current posture of the Persian Gulf states hosting American military bases and providing a launch pad for ballistic missile operations against Iran is deeply problematic.
It reflects, as per analysts, a perilous combination of structural dependency, institutional inertia, and a dangerous underestimation of Iranian anger, resolve, and military capability.
As one military expert told the Press TV website, these micro-states are not positioned to absorb the consequences of a sustained Iranian retaliatory campaign.
“Their small land masses, concentrated infrastructure, and limited strategic depth render them acutely vulnerable in ways that their larger patron is not. By gambling their national survival on the assumption that Iranian red lines are empty, and that US protection is everlasting, they are making a remarkably poor bet, one that history has rarely rewarded,” he noted.
Kiev hitting civilian targets in Russia to provoke mirror response – ex-Pentagon analyst
RT | July 24, 2026
Kiev is targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia in an attempt to provoke Moscow into responding in kind so that Ukraine can “play the victim,” knowing Western media will largely ignore attacks on Russian civilians, former Pentagon senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof has told RT.
Thursday marked the third Ukrainian strike on warehouses belonging to Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, Wildberries in an escalation of Kiev’s campaign against Russian civilian infrastructure. Ukraine has claimed the company supports Russian military logistics, an allegation denied by both Moscow and Wildberries itself. In a separate attack the same day, Ukrainian forces also struck storage facilities at a poultry farm near St. Petersburg.
Speaking to RT on Friday, Maloof described the attacks as a deliberate “terrorist” strategy.
“They’re doing it purposely in order to lure Russia to start hitting civilian targets… thereby knowing that the Western press will take that information and run with it,” he said.
“And that’s all that you’ll ever hear. You never hear about the attacks in Russia on civilian targets… And so I think the Ukrainians are just trying to play victim once again.”
Maloof dismissed Kiev’s assertion that Wildberries – an online marketplace comparable to Amazon – is a legitimate military target.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd in the extreme.”
He argued that Ukraine expects most Western media outlets not to scrutinize its claims or “see the fraud” behind the justification for attacking the company.
According to Maloof, the broader campaign against Russian energy, food and other civilian infrastructure is aimed primarily at shaping public opinion abroad and securing continued Western financial support.
“It’s propagandistic purposes” designed to win “billions of euros” to continue the conflict, he said.
Maloof added that Ukraine’s European backers are fully aware that civilian sites are being targeted but choose to overlook it.
“They’re using Ukraine for their purposes: ultimately to attack Russia themselves,” he said. “All of this is instigated by the Europeans.”
UN experts call for accountability five months after US-Israeli attack on Minab school
Press TV – July 24, 2026
UN experts have called for an independent investigation into the bombing of a primary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab that killed 168 children and teachers, saying the attack highlights serious violations of international law during war of aggression by the United States and Israel.
In a statement released on Friday, the experts said the school was struck twice during school hours on Feb. 28, 2026, and that there was no indication it was being used for military purposes.
“The school was clearly identifiable as a civilian educational facility and that they had received no information indicating it was being used for military purposes,” the statement read.
Five months later, they said, neither the United States nor Israel had made public the findings of any investigation into the deadly attack, raising questions about the transparency of any inquiry.
“Five months following the school bombing in Minab, the US and Israel have not made any findings public, raising valid questions regarding the impartiality, effectiveness and transparency of any investigation that may be underway,” the experts said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
The experts further stated that the Minab school attack illustrated as a broader failure by the United States and Israel to protect civilians during armed conflict, particularly women and children.
“Characterizing civilian deaths as a mistake does not diminish States’ obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, nor does it preclude individual criminal responsibility where violations have occurred,” they said.
“Victims and their families are entitled to truth, justice and effective reparations.”
They voiced grave concern over serious violations of international law arising from US and Israeli war of aggression in Iran since Feb. 28, 2026.
The independent experts called for prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including attacks on schools, hospitals and other protected sites.
“International law prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State,” the experts said. “The prohibition of the threat or use of force is a cornerstone of the international legal order.”
The US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran between Feb. 28 and early April killed at least 3,375 civilians, including nearly 500 women, and wounded more than 33,000 others, noted the experts.
The experts also said they had received credible reports that Iranian civilians may have been exposed to internationally prohibited and banned hazardous substances, with potentially serious health consequences, particularly for women, girls and pregnant women.
The experts also expressed concern over the latest round of US aggression against Iran despite a memorandum of understanding (MoU) intended to end the war.
The experts urged United States to adhere to the principles of distinction and precaution under international humanitarian law and to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure on land and at sea. They also warned against attacks on civilian population centers, desalination plants and electricity networks.
The US-Israeli acts of aggression in June 2025 and again since February 2026 have deliberately targeted civilians, civilian infrastructure and critical facilities in violation of international law and international humanitarian law.
After weeks of sporadic incidents, the US military launched a fresh wave of large-scale attacks on Iranian soil two weeks ago, targeting military and civilian sites mainly in southern provinces. The attacks have so far destroyed several infrastructure sites, such as bridges and water desalination plants, and killed over 50 Iranians.
Senior Iranian officials have warned that ongoing US attacks threaten regional stability, freedom of navigation, and the security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
What’s Ukraine Really After by Striking Russia’s Marketplace Warehouses?
Sputnik – 24.07.2026
Ukrainian forces have hit Wildberries warehouses in multiple Russian cities for several day. Ukraine’s official line says the facilities were used to store dual-use goods: body armor, military uniforms, fiber optics.
Plausible? Hardly.
The very same items are freely sold on Amazon, Temu, AliExpress, and other Western and Chinese platforms across Europe. Neither the EU, nor NATO, nor Ukraine itself treats those sales as legitimate military targets.
So what’s really going on?
Striking Wildberries’ warehouses means hitting ordinary local workers: people unloading trucks, stacking shelves, earning a paycheck. That’s not a military operation, but terrorist attack aimed at civilians.
This isn’t just about Russia, either. The marketplace supports hundreds of thousands of sellers from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. They use Wildberries’ infrastructure to move goods across borders: clothing from Kazakhstan to Armenia, for example. These strikes don’t just hurt Russians, but hit entrepreneurs and businesses across a dozen countries.
What do these warehouses really hold? Mostly clothes, shoes, home goods, and beauty products, which are bought primarily by women with children.
This isn’t an ammunition depot and surely not a big-tech data center. Ukraine’s rhetoric is wearing thin: and the pretext is getting harder to sell.
Conveniently, though, it fits the narrative of Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Mykhailo Drapaty, who recently told an interviewer that Russians “have no right to exist as a nation.”
Ex-Indian envoy: US showed ‘scant regard’ for India in attack on Iranian frigate
Press TV – July 24, 2026
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal says the US attack on the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena near Sri Lanka demonstrated Washington’s disregard for India’s sensitivities, warning that the war with Iran has expanded beyond West Asia into India’s immediate maritime neighborhood.
“The sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by a US submarine in the Indian Ocean has brought the widening conflict with Iran into India’s immediate maritime neighborhood. This is no longer a distant West Asian crisis,” Sibal wrote on X on Friday.
Sibal said the circumstances gave the incident both moral and diplomatic significance for New Delhi.
“That fact gives the episode a moral and diplomatic dimension that cannot simply be ignored. The United States has shown scant regard for Indian sensitivities in carrying out this action so close to our shores,” he said.
Warning that the consequences extend beyond the immediate attack, Sibal said the war between major powers will inevitably spread beyond West Asia into regions vital to India’s interests.
“The larger issue is the progressive spread of the conflict beyond West Asia. Escalation between major powers does not remain geographically contained. It inevitably spills into regions that are vital to India’s security and economic interests,” he wrote.
He added: “Stability in the Indian Ocean, freedom of navigation, and uninterrupted energy flows are not abstract concerns for India. They are core national interests. Any sustained disruption in these waters will have direct and serious consequences for us.”
Sibal said New Delhi now faces the challenge of preserving its strategic autonomy while balancing ties with both Washington and Tehran.
“India now faces the difficult task of preserving its strategic autonomy while managing relations with both Washington and Tehran. Conflicts between other powers that reach our maritime neighborhood leave us with fewer good options and greater exposure,” he wrote.
“The central question is how India protects its interests when the wars of others begin to unfold in its own extended neighborhood. This is no longer a hypothetical problem. It has arrived.”
Sibal also criticized the Indian government following the sinking of the IRIS Dena, writing that, “If India had not invited the Iranian warship to participate in the exercise, it would not have been in that area.”
Referring to the Milan 2026 multinational naval exercise, he said, “Participating ships were not allowed to carry any ammunition,” adding that the Iranian frigate “was unarmed at the time.”
He also said that “the US submarine attack appears to have been planned in advance because Washington was aware of the Iranian warship’s participation in the exercise.”
The IRIS Dena was returning from the Milan 2026 multinational naval exercise, hosted by the Indian Navy with the participation of 72 countries, when it was attacked by a US submarine in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan authorities said 32 Iranian sailors were rescued, while the fate of 140 others remained unknown. Iranian media reported that 80 sailors were killed in the attack.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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